Beauty of Northeast India- Awesome Assam

 

Swami Vivekananda had said once that Assam is India’s most beautiful place after Kashmir.  In my recent trip to the state, I had a chance to experience this first hand.  Nourished by the mighty Brahmaputra river flowing between blue hills and through lush green valley, Assam is one of the richest biodiversity zones in the world and consists of tropical rainforests, deciduous forests, grasslands and numerous wetland ecosystems.  



My trip began in Dibrugarh in Upper Assam area.  Dibrugarh is the third largest city of the state with flourishing oil, natural gas and tea industry.  It has the world's largest percentage area covered by tea gardens.  The entire district is strewn with tea plantations and tea factories.  Many tea gardens are more than 100 years old.  My visit was in connection with a North East Business Summit, as part of which I visited the Bokel Tea Estate- one of the largest tea plantations in the state with a planted area of 744 hectares.  It produces the premium Assam CTC tea which is famous for its strong gutty liquor and golden colour.  The Bokel TE also hosts a 9-hole golf course of the Dibrugarh District & Planters Club.  In fact most of the tea gardens of Assam have golf courses attached to them.  All of them are 9-hole golf courses except for Digboi (50 km from Dibrugarh) which is an eighteen hole course.  Our business delegation got a chance to experience the elegant hospitality of the Estate Manager and his wife.  My work also took me to the home of one of the largest planter families in the city for a dinner reception.  The house had its own private temple, a very large lawn and amazing collection of antique artifacts.  The venue of the business event itself was in Dibrugarh University- the easternmost university of India with a campus of over 100 hectares.  The enthusiasm and the commitment of the entire University community to make the mega-event a success struck me.  Everyone, from Vice Chancellor to student volunteers participated actively and extended their unstinted support to make the large business event a great success.  The university guest house was thrown open for business delegates to stay, as well as the tea estate and oil company guest houses, which helped alleviate the shortfall of premium standard hotel rooms in the city.  The city police was visible, alert and effective for the entire duration of the 3-day event.  Such cooperation among business-administration-academia is rarely seen when similar events are held on routine basis in large cities.  Between my work schedule, I visited a local Tibetan market for winter clothes.  The shops had good collection and the prices were fixed.  All effort of Kolkata-style bargaining was resisted.  During my early morning exploration walk with my camera, I also chanced upon a desolate building with interesting architecture in a lane off H S Road.  It turned out to be an important local institution for spirituality and orientalism, named Biraj Ashram.  Established in 1916, the Ashram (hermitage) was home to Dr Jogiraj Basu, MA (Triple), PhD- an eminent scholar of Sanskrit, orientalist, litterateur and educationist who dedicated his life for the cause of higher education at Dibrugarh in particular and North East in general.  The caretaker noted my curiosity and took me inside for a guided tour of the Ashram premise.  The place is desolate now, with few remaining memories of the taste and spirituality of the people who stayed there once.  The discovery of the Ashram was certainly one of the high points of my trip to Dibrugarh.   

                                 

 

 

  

 

                                         

Family arrived over the weekend and we embarked upon a meticulously scheduled five-day tour of the upper Assam area.  Our driver was a young local boy with his Scorpio.  A very good driver otherwise, he had a rather avoidable habit of trying to impress us with his intimate knowledge of the unexplored tourist locations of Arunachal Pradesh by comparing everything nice we saw with what better he could show us there.  On our way, we stopped at the Ethelwold Tea Estate and made best use of the early morning photo opportunity amidst lush green tree plantation.  The owners also run a large temple complex in the same area, with Krishna and Shiva temples inside.

 

 

We passed through several local markets, and we stopped at a large one to pick up our food supply for stay at the forest lodge.  The market was vibrant; the vegetables large and fresh.  The display of local produce such as areca nut, orange, ginger Ghost Pepper (Bhoot Jolokia in local language) was tempting.  Live animals such as chicken and pig were being carried in uniquely designed bamboo basket.  The locally produced brown rice turned out to be quite tasty when cooked. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also passed through Sivasagar.  Named after Lord Shiva, this was the capital of the mighty Ahoms, who ruled Assam for six hundred years before the advent of the British.  I had read that the entire district is strewn with tell-tale ruins of a powerful empire.  We however did not plan to stop there in our trip.  Around dusk, we reached our destination- the Hollongapar Gibbon Wildlife Sanctuary in the Mariani Range of Jorhat Forest Division.  The place is about 165 km west of Dibrugarh.  While researching my travel plan to upper Assam, I chanced upon a traveler review about this small but unique forest.  It is a 21 sq km forest area and the only sanctuary in the country named after a primate.  It has the rare distinction of being the only home to seven primate species, with a very high density of Hoolock Gibbon (105 numbers in 26 families) and Slow Loris (Lajuki Bandor in Assamese).  It is also one of the last strongholds of Stump Tailed Macaque (233 numbers in 2 troops). 



Assam Distance Chart- source: Assam Tourism brochure
 

 

I decided to take a chance and add the place to my itinerary.  The caretaker of the Forest Rest House was waiting for us, having received advance intimation about our arrival from the Divisional Forest Officer.  He led us to the Forest bungalow, which appeared to be an old one-storied building raised from the ground on concrete stilts.  Another bigger and better structure was under construction.  The surrounding forest looked promising, but the arrival was rendered unpleasant and rather scary by a group of local men who were playing car stereo loudly and loitering in the lawn.  Evidently they just finished a picnic at the place.  To add to the eeriness, there was no power.  After much effort, a candle was found which was lit up to reveal a ill-maintained room smelling of alcohol.  If there was still daylight, I might have considered the option of leaving and look for a less eventful accommodation in the nearest town.  The lack of option encouraged us to face the odds with a Columbus attitude.  Hearing Bengali conversation from the (only) other room, I chatted up with the occupant, who turned out to be a wildlife photographer from the suburbs of Kolkata.  He was a source of confidence for us during this rather unsettling arrival in an unknown and unconventional place.  Things started improving steadily thereafter.  The caretaker made an effort to clean up the room and brought in fresh linen.  I also chatted up with the loud local group, who turned out to be a group of journalists from a local vernacular daily in Jorhat.  They gradually acknowledged our presence and toned down their unspoken rebellion towards our arrival.  In the later stages of the conversation they even asked me if we were feeling any inconvenience due to their presence.  My Aristortle’ian reply was that we are fine, but the Gibbons might be inconvenienced by the loud music.  The car stereo soon fell silent, and the group left after a pick-up van arrived to take their picnic paraphernalia.  We were finally face to face with the sound of silence and the illumination of darkness.  Power came back earlier than expected, and we handed over our grocery treasure trove to the caretaker.  Very soon those came back with significant value addition- in form of tea, steaming vegetable pakoda and salad.  By then, our fellow boarder’s companion also returned from the market.  He was Assamese and a naturalist by profession.  We all settled down in the balcony and had the most interesting conversation, sharing our individual passions and travel experiences.  They shared some of the most amazing anecdotes about close quarter experiences with wildlife during their night-time photographic adventures.  I narrated my people experience at the religious festivals of India to which I traveled.  The dinner with steaming local rice, dak bungalow style chicken curry and salad tasted heavenly in the forest ambience.  We were told to go to the Forest Beat office at 7 am next morning.  We reached ahead of schedule, and were assigned a forest guard to take us on a walking trail.  We walked a few kilometers- with the prime objective of locating a gibbon family. 

 

In our walking trail however, all we found was an excellent semi-evergreen forest, tall Hollong tree (from which the forest gets its name), colorful mushrooms, huge earthworm droppings and a Giant Malayan squirrel prancing on the tree.  After an hour, we could hear Gibbons hollering at another side of the forest.  We quickly summoned our car and raced to that side.  After much frantic search up the foliage, the guard finally located a family moving in one of the tall trees.  We stepped off from the road and walked in to the undergrowth to have a better view.  We first saw a male, which is black in color.  Soon enough, we got a fleeting glance of the brown female too.  I managed to get a few pictures, but it is for situations like this that telephoto lens was invented which I did not have.  It was a happy ending to a two-hour forest walk.  We returned to our forest rest house, finished breakfast, settled payment for our stay and left by 11 am for Kaziranga.  Just when we were about to board the car, a Gibbon came and started frolicking in the trees adjoining the forest bungalow, as if to bid us farewell.  A fitting finale to an adventurous trip to the only primate sanctuary of India! 

 

 

 

 

The 90 km drive to Kaziranga was of 3 hours.  Most of it was silk smooth and passed through tea gardens on both sides.  We reached by early afternoon and checked in to the magnificent two-storied 1939-built wooden bungalow- Bonani Tourist Lodge of Assam Tourism Department.  I had put in significant background work to arrange for permission to stay in this very special accommodation.  The building has only five really expansive suites.  We were given a corner room in the upper floor, which offered a panoramic view of the surroundings from the balcony.  A flight of wooden stairs led to our room, and there was a gigantic skull of a rhino perched at the staircase landing.  The Forest Range office in the vicinity had deer skull with magnificent horns adorning the courtyard.  The staff was courteous and evidently well-trained due to regular movement of foreigners and VIPs.  We were narrated the stories of several film stars, Governors and Presidents who had stayed in the place.  We booked our 6:30 am elephant safari for next morning from the reception counter itself- it costs Rs. 525 per person.  There was a bit of surprise about it- we were told we will be sent to the Western Range for the elephant safari, which is 11 km from the Central Range gate on which this Tourism Complex of Government is located.  They helped us book a private taxi (apparently owned by one of the staff, I later discovered) to take us there, wait and bring us back.  This didn’t seem right, and upon detailed inquiry I found out that the Central Range has the official Forest Department-managed elephant safari; while the Western Range safari is organized through private contract.  The Forest Department’s own safari has less than 100 seats, with several preference and package quotas.  The general seats are allotted on first-come-first-serve basis.  So the Tourism Department staff sends their guests to the private safari for “better assurance of seats”.  They however offered no explanation regarding why the private operator was forcibly charging full rate for children, although the display board clearly wrote a reduced rate for children below 12 years.  I was told that no one can answer the question.  My fighting spirit was significantly numbed by the beauty of the place and the holiday mood, so I glossed over the anomalies and behaved philosophically.

 

We started next morning at 5:30 am for the elephant safari.  The elephants started queuing up at the riding post at 6:30 am sharp.  Each elephant seats four persons, plus the mahout.  Seats are comfortable, and there is a hand-rail too.  An armed forest guard accompanied the group on every alternate elephant.  As the elephants started trudging in to the Kaziranga National Park, the first thing that struck me is that the landscape is incredibly beautiful.  A vast open stretch of grassland, interspersed with water-bodies and interrupted by woodland and the occasional hillock in the horizon, greeted us.  A pall of mist hung low on the land.  The early morning sun was gently coaxing the forest to wake up, like a mother affectionately telling her child to leave the bed during his winter holidays.  I told myself at that moment that my first priority will be to soak in the beauty of this forest, rather than hankering after wildlife sighting.  Whatever animal comes along our way is a bonus.  However, even the bonus turned out to be of Wall Street standard, as I discovered by the end of the day.

 

 

 

Soon the elephants started breaking up from the column.  In small groups, they left the track to descend in to the tall grassland.  The first descent was quite steep and our first instinct was to grab the hand-rail tight, lest we or the elephant topple over.  Nothing of that sort happened, and soon our elephant was pushing its way through big patches of elephant grass, sometimes as tall as itself.  Quite soon, we reached an open area which led to the bank of a river.  On the other side, we could see several rhinos, deer, wild water buffalo and migratory birds.  Evidently the animals we secure with the knowledge that their playground would not be within reach of the daily crowd of exuberant tourists.  After a few minutes of enjoying our first long-distance wildlife sighting, our elephants turned back and went back in to the grassland.  The close-quarter experiences were soon to follow.  Meanwhile, I could click two beautiful birds perched high on a denuded tree; a swamp deer and a wild water buffalo with spectacular horns and six-pack body.  The buffalo was evidently not pleased with the sight of the elephants- it let out a loud cry and then galloped away in good speed- thankfully not towards us.  Soon, the elephants closed in on what looked like an adolescent rhino.  I say so because it was of medium size and the skin did not look as bullet-proof as compared to a full-grown rhino.  Four elephants, with their practiced ease, immediately surrounded the rhino and cornered it against a thick shrubbery.  This gave us a very good opportunity to take close-quarter photos of the distressed animal.  A short while later, we came across another young rhino which had just finished its morning mud-pack.  The sighting was completed with the clear view of a third, full-grown rhino. Although we heard intimidating stories of rhinos occasionally charging at elephants and its ability to run a short burst at 50+ km/hour, nothing of that sort happened.  At least in the morning ;-)  On the way back, our elephant picked up its perk for the hard work- a bunch of fresh green elephant grass.  Prompted by the mahout, our elephant gave a gorgeous salute when I got off its back and took a photograph of the rest of the group as a parting memory of the magnificent ride.              

 

The afternoon jeep safari was equally, if not more, eventful.  The jeep safari begins from the Assam Tourism Complex, where we were staying.  The safari can be booked on the spot.  The vehicle is a 4-6 seater Maruti Gypsy.  After the safari is booked from the counter, the driver arranges for Forest Department entry pass which is issued at 2 pm.  The areas covered in a jeep safari in Kaziranga are Burapahar Range (Ghoraketi), Kohora Range (Central), Agoratoli Range (Eastern), Bagori Range (Western) and Panbari Reserved Forest.  Central Range is the most popular, and costs Rs. 2000/- approximately.  In the tourist season, 70-100 jeeps enter the forest in quick succession after 2 pm and follow a fixed route unlike elephant safari.  My naturalist friend in Hollongapar had advised me to try to be within the first 5 while entering, since the sight and sound of so many jeeps along with the wild enthusiasm of the tourists tend to drive away the animals.  I followed this, and advised our driver to race ahead and remain at the front of the pack.  I added an instruction to fall back during the return leg and stay at the end of the pack so that I could take good pictures of the sunset.  The jeeps took the dusty forest trail and crossed perilous wooden bridges over several water bodies to move inside.  I realized that staying ahead also saved us from the cloud of dust raised by the wheels of every jeep.  The road was bumpy but the landscape was serene.  We crossed an elephant riding point which had the water levels from several past floods marked on a post.  It was shocking to see the flood levels of 1988 and 1998 were 8-9 feet high.  We crossed a herd of elephants having a relaxed time around a tree.  Although the driver tried to pass them off as wild, they looked rejected and dejected Forest Department elephants to me.  Soon the jeep left the open track to enter an area covered with trees and shrubs on both sides.  Diffused sunlight through the foliage accentuated the anticipation of what lay ahead of us in the forest trail. 

After seeing a pelican and a vulture, the first major sighting was of a wild water buffalo- from very close range.  Next, and most fascinating sight, was that of a group of elephants which looked wild every inch.  Scavenger birds were perched on its back, and they had sprayed themselves with dust.  The solid mass of muscle and bone, moving majestically within a bright green grove of Erica plant was a fascinating sight.  Our driver, followed by two others behind him, stopped their engine.  The forest Guard told us to be quiet; driver looked distinctly fidgety.  As I frantically worked on my camera to get the best possible picture, I realized that the fear of the experienced forest operators was not unfounded.  A south Indian tourist group in the jeep behind us became uncontrollably excited, and started making all kinds of inviting sounds with the hope that the elephant turns his face towards him (and possibly even smile) for a photo-op in front of his compact pocket camera.  An angry growl from the forest guard dampened their exuberance and possibly prevented the elephants taking undue interest in our group.  We moved on and reached a watch tower where all jeeps assemble, give 10-15 minutes to tourists to vent their excitement/climb the watch tower/take photographs/have some food and water.  As planned, our jeep fell back behind most and was possibly the first among the last five jeeps to start the return journey.  The landscape now started to get bathed in the golden hue of the setting sun.  The light created magic on the vast track of elephant grass, whose tip had itself acquired a golden tinge with the onset of winter.  I learnt later that the grass is systematically burnt down by the Forest Department starting December.  That is the reason the professional wildlife photographers visit during February-April, when the grass is fully burnt down and allows long-range photo shoot.  When our jeep exited the forest at 4:45 pm, the soft glow of the setting sun mirrored the warm feeling in our heart as we bid adieu to the most magnificent natural habitat we ever been.

The evening and next morning was spent in exploring the local area.  The Kohora area is dotted with various tourist resorts, all lined along the National Highway.  There is a Hathikuli Tea Estate just adjoining the Tourism Complex.  They have a smart looking retail outlet, selling both organic and regular tea, of both green and roasted variety.  There are also ethnic stores selling local fabric and handicraft, several grocery stores and few shops selling local souvenirs.  Two restaurants serve local cuisine.  Snacks served hot and fresh from small stalls taste really good.

 

Next day we started for Guwahati, which was just a day’s transit halt before our return trip to Kolkata.  The road was smooth, except for 30 odd speed-breakers which have been recently added to ensure safety of animals in this wildlife corridor, but manages to irritate the drivers to no end.  We crossed the Burapahar Range gate about 22 km from the main Kohora area- the area looked desolate.  The jeep drivers have started a concerted word-of-mouth promotion to encourage tourists to come to these less frequented and distant Ranges.  The Burapahar Range is known for sighting of birds in particular.  However, our driver narrated stories of how unsuspecting tourist groups and even forest guards have been attacked by elephants and rhinos in this relatively desolate area.  He was a jeep safari driver himself, and said he saw us the day before during the safari.  He told us that in the previous evening, a rhino had charged a jeep and overturned it.  Since we did not see it, it must have been one of the six jeeps that were trailing us during return.  The news did not get adequately reported, as also the growing instances of rhino poaching- one of which happened the day before our trip according to local people.  According to media reports, 38 rhinos have been killed by poachers in Assam in 2013 till November, including 33 in Kaziranga alone.  Considering that the Park has 2290 rhinos as per recent estimate, at this rate the entire population will be wiped out within a few decades.  No amount of “save rhino” campaign can save the species from extinction unless the local population of North East rise up and come forward to protect, rather than kill, the species which is inalienably linked to the heritage and economy of the region.

Overall, the trip to Upper Assam was quite a unique experience.  The blend of unparalleled natural beauty and wildlife charmed me.  The people experience was mixed.  What struck me is that so much more could be done to make it a more friendly and pleasant experience for the tourists.  People come to Kaziranga National Park from many different parts of the country and the world.  This presents a rare opportunity for the entire region to present its best face and spread the good word about what more the region could offer.  Not having proper information displayed at the right places; charging extra beyond the official rates for rides; not giving proper receipt; saving pennies by not printing tourist literature do not help to multiply the tourist flow through positive word of mouth.  The work of several good people and well-meaning government officials get shadowed by few who make a few extra bucks but spoil the earning potential of hundreds by not doing the right things.  I hope and pray that the region shakes off all its shortcomings and earns its rightful place in the heart and travel itinerary of many more tourists from around the world who are ready to go the extra mile in search of something as beautiful and original as Assam.